Large computer systems including mainframes and enterprise servers have traditionally included a primary console to enable system administrators to configure and administer the computer system. These primary consoles typically take the form of a monitor, keyboard and mouse attached locally to the host computer system being monitored and controlled by the system administrator. Because of the demand for flexibility and the ability for system administrators to be located distant from host computer systems, remote consoles have been provided to emulate the primary console of the computer system on a remote workstation over a modem or network connection. In order for the remote system administrator to use such a remote workstation for a console, video information representing the screen of a primary console must be captured at the host system and transmitted over the network, preferably in near real-time and the workstation must produce a facsimile of the screen that would be at the primary console. Keystroke and mouse input and perhaps other inputs from the remote workstation must be transmitted to the host computer system and used by the system keyboard controller and mouse controller software to enable the remote system to be responsive to input from the user console.
In many systems, remote console emulators typically access the host computer system bus to obtain video information and to transmit that to the remote console which has a substantial impact on the system bus performance in the host computer. Special software is also often required such as drivers and interrupt mechanisms running on the host computer which also impact the performance of the host computer.
There have been a number of alternate approaches to remote console support described in at least the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 6,321,287 issued to Rao et al., 5,440,699 issued to Farrand et al., 6,098,143 issued to Humphreys et al., and 6,385,682B1 issued to Emerson et al. Our own related invention has been published as an international publication No. WO 00/70472 on 23 Nov. 2000. All of these patents and publications are hereby incorporated by reference.
Significantly, not one of these prior publications or patents provides for the emulation of the entire console at the remote location including significantly a boot volume or other data drive from which the host computer system and the emulation card may be brought up and initialized. This becomes especially important in multi-processor computer systems where the size of the system is increasable by adding a cellular partition, and wherein each partition is likely to have its own need for a management console, and thus its own need for a boot volume. In prior art, although there was a console-related data volume available and access to a boot disk, in all those cases the boot disk or other data volume located on the host was required to be attached to a peripheral controller associated with the hardware that was supporting the remote console. In the case of our publication (WO 00/70472), this would have been the peripheral device interface 48 of its FIG. 1 which is attached to the host system. Where there are multiple partitions in a multiprocessor system, the prior art required each partition to have such a connection and associated local data volume. Accordingly, removing the need to have a peripheral device interface or a controller for a local disk drive, CD ROM or other data volume in the context of a host computer system having multiple partitions each of which may require a remote console support unit, a way needed to be found in which one could obviate the need for a local disk drive in such a position.
Also, a system having both emulated graphics display support and remote data volume support would be advantageous in the context of using remote consoles.
Additionally, as graphic displays became more important and prevalent, the amount of information that needed to be transferred in order to support remote consoles became larger and a way to minimize the amount of data transfer between the remote console and the local support for the remote console became more important.
Finally, where multiple Operating Systems of various types may share a single computer system, a single system for handling the above-described functions in an adapter card is a strongly felt need.
Accordingly, the invention described herein addresses itself to these needs.